MAX FRISCH — BLUEBEARD

I have my mother-in-law to thank for rekindling my interest in Max Frisch. Her recommendation shows she knows me — maybe in a far more essential way than I know her. For one, there’s the tone of Bluebeard, dark and absurd, descriptors I would hope to apply to my own writing and which rarely fail to characterize what scratches my readerly itches. There’s a slow and steady tipping effect from one side to the other — in morality, character loyalty, world order. Check. There’s a frame story — check. Concision — check. 

And there’s something about it that’s really specific and that I don’t know why I favor in many novels but I do. Bluebeard achieves its effect by means of structure rather than prose style. To be specific, a given page of this novel is mostly comprised of dialog from a trial; much of this dialog is shaped by the combative questions of a prosecutor. In addition to this, the accused injects observations and quotidian scenes from his present circumstances. Feeding swans, playing billiards alone. Very rarely is the accused permitted, within the rules of this the novel, to share a reflection or opinion; he never confesses in the literal nor the figurative sense of the word.

I have no reason to suspect that the appearances of the accused were anything but calculated on the part of Max Frisch, but I also found a sense of loose chanciness that I suspect is one reason among a long list of them why this novel succeeds. Put another way, there is structural rigor without it ever feeling rigorous. The novel wears its rules lightly.  

On the other hand, one could contend that the structure is not believable. The accused recalls his trial in great detail while going about his day, but it’s a 70/30 split; no one could be so consumed with memories that they push out the present moment. But — I was completely taken in. The feel was right. I can believe, for the span of my reading, that the mind can work such tricks when one’s on trial for murder.